


A Mother's Lot

by thankyouturtle



Category: Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouturtle/pseuds/thankyouturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly Blackett has always worried about her daughters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mother's Lot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dessie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dessie/gifts).



Molly worried about her daughters a lot. She always had.

She worried about her daughters when they were tiny babies, first Nancy, who was always screaming and yelling and trying to grab Molly’s hair. What if she screamed herself hoarse? Was it colic, that made her so loud, that kept her up all hours when other women’s babies were asleep? Or was it her – had she done something wrong, something that was unsettling her? And then Peggy was so quiet, so calm, after Nancy, that that worried Molly too. Was she sick? Was she ill? Was she dying?

She worried about her daughters when their father died. Girls needed a man in their life, someone to look up to, as much as boys did, Molly was sure. How was she ever going to do that alone? And Jim – was he really prepared to give up his own dreams? Was her brother really the kind of man that her girls would follow, and adore, and obey?

She worried about her daughters when they took to spending all their days out on the lake, adventuring. She’d been much the same as them, when she was their age, but all that meant was that she knew how difficult life could be, for a woman who would rather be sailing or climbing or camping than sitting still all day, sewing or playing the piano. She tried to give them a freer hand than she’d had, but she worried that without restrictions she was letting them run too wild, that they’d never be comfortable at boarding school, where there were rules and regulations that they’d have to obey.

She worried about her daughters when the war broke out, and Nancy and Peggy decided that they had more to offer than simply rationing their sugar and praying for the troops. Peggy took to nursing, and Molly worried that the handsome soldier she’d nursed, and given her heart to, would cause her youngest daughter to learn first-hand the same grief that Molly had once felt. And Nancy – she couldn’t tell her mother exactly what she was doing. The letters she sent were few and far between, and never seemed to have come from the same place twice. But every letter that arrived for Molly made her stop worrying, even if it was just for an hour, a minute, a second. _Three million cheers_ , they always said, _New land discovered. Savage natives. Will take time to tame them._

She worried about her daughters when the war was over, and Nancy returned to announce her engagement to John Walker, and Peggy announced that she didn’t think she could give up nursing now, not for anyone. Would they be happy in their choices? Would the new challenges now facing them be enough to quell their need for adventure, the way that Molly’s marriage, and parenthood, had for her? Did Nancy and Peggy know, that whatever they did, that wherever their choices lead them, their mother would always love them, and always be proud of them?

Molly worried about her daughters a lot. She always had. But it was a mother’s job to worry about her children, after all, and Molly knew she couldn’t ask for two better, stronger, more capable daughters to worry about.


End file.
